


thought you were someone else

by ymirjotunn



Series: disarm me [1]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ymirjotunn/pseuds/ymirjotunn
Summary: There's never going to be a good time to ask, so Neku figures he should just get it over with now.(i keep thinking about that one headcanon where josh is neku's friend and i keep thinking about how neat and tidy narratives are not necessarily good narratives and so i wrote about that)





	thought you were someone else

**Author's Note:**

> warning for talking about depression and death

“So I wanted to ask,” Neku says, staring at Josh from across the table.

 

“Mm?” He’s sitting there stirring his tea, flipping through a book, looking utterly fascinated with its contents. Not especially busy, but Neku doesn’t really have his attention yet, either.

 

Neku’s been thinking about this for a while now. A few years, maybe longer? He’s just never really built up the energy to ask. “I was wondering. Uh… A couple years ago, I guess, seven, eight maybe, a friend of mine--he was in an accident, and I was…” 

 

Shit. Shit, this is hard. It’s hard enough to have a friend like that  _ die _ and then it’s even harder to not know what happened to him, now that he knows that something would have happened.

 

Josh is looking at him now, brow quirked. “You were what?”

 

“Was wondering if you were him,” Neku says, all in one breath, and there, the weird theory is out in the open, whatever happens happens.

 

Josh stares for a moment. Sets down his book. Blinks. And begins to laugh.

 

“What?” Now Neku’s just mad. “What’s funny about  _ that _ , you ass?”

 

“Neku,” Joshua says, spluttering, and he holds a hand to his chest. “Neku, dear,  _ dearest _ Neku, I’ve been dead for  _ much _ longer than you’ve been alive, bless your heart--”

 

“Oh, that makes me feel  _ great  _ about dating you, yeah--”

 

“--and I’d never met you before I picked you, I didn’t even know your  _ name _ until after I shot you.” Josh is clearly trying to stop laughing, gripping his own shaking shoulders with his hands, for whatever that’s worth, but he’s still laughing, so it’s not really worth  _ that _ much. “Why on earth would you think that? Do I look that much like him?” He pauses. “Was it even a him?”

 

“Yeah, it was a him.” Neku scratches the back of his neck. “Uh...I figured maybe you disguised yourself, or something. You can do that, right?”

 

“I mean, I _ could _ , yes, but I don’t know why I would  _ want _ to. I think this form is quite nice.” Josh looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he reaches across the table, snaps his fingers, and there’s a chocolate chip cookie in his hand that wasn’t there before. Why a god of a city needs to be able to manifest food at will, Neku doesn’t know, but Josh seems to really enjoy doing it. “Cookie?”

 

Neku squints at it. “Uh...no...thanks?”

 

Josh shrugs. “Suit yourself. I merely thought it would be polite to offer refreshments when helping a friend handle grief.” He takes a bite of it for himself instead.

 

Neku crosses his arms, and doesn’t dignify the display of manners with a response. Joshua doesn’t get a prize  _ every  _ time he’s nice. “So. Do you, uh, know what happened?”

 

“To him?” Josh finishes the last of the cookie and wipes his mouth, delicate, then snaps another one into existence. “I don’t even know his name.”

 

“What, you can’t just summon up the records or whatever? What happened to being all-powerful?” Neku leans back in his chair. He’s not exactly more  _ comfortable _ now, but at least he has this...closure, or whatever. Not really closure. Semi-closure.

 

“I’m  _ clairvoyant _ , not omniscient,” Joshua says. “I would need at the very least his name, or the date of his death, or  _ something _ .”

 

Neku holds his hand out. Josh looks confused for a moment until something seems to click, and then he snaps a pen and a small notepad into existence, pushes them across the table.

 

The paper has a little feather design on the top. Cute. Neku draws out the kanji, and writes a few numbers underneath, the same numbers that make him flinch every year on the calendar, pushes the pad of paper back across the table.

 

“Ah.” Josh closes his eyes for a moment. “He was reincarnated. He…” -- and Josh is smiling, with his eyes closed, which is a little strange -- “...liked music, I see, I can see he visited every record store at least twice.”

 

Neku nods. “Yeah. Sounds about right.”

 

“Do you want to know where he was reincarnated?” Josh blinks, meeting Neku’s eyes, more curious than anything.

 

“No,” Neku says. “That’d be kinda weird. I don’t want to think about him as a baby. Or a...plant, or whatever.” He rubs his arm, thinking everything over. “Just kind of want to remember him as my friend, y’know.”

 

Josh shrugs, but seems to accept this answer. “And why was I nominated for his potential specter, out of curiosity?”

 

“Didn’t know why else you would’ve picked me, I guess.” Neku thinks about it for a second, and then holds his hand out across the table. “Can I have a cookie, actually?”

 

Josh beams, and drops one into his palm. “I picked you because of your  _ weltschmerz _ , of course. Your world-weariness. Your distaste for the people around you, your inclination to retreat into a dark corner and your headphones, your…” He waves his hand vaguely.

 

Neku squints. “My...depression?”

 

Josh laughs at this. “I suppose. I could relate. I figured you would model me most accurately, in-game.”

 

“So you were a brooding emo before I met you, too, huh?” Neku takes a bite of the cookie. It’s...really good, unfortunately, like most of the things Josh conjures up, but he hates admitting it. Food shouldn’t be that easy to do right; Josh should have to put some kind of  _ work  _ into it.

 

“I prefer the term  _ melancholy _ ,” Joshua says.

 

Neku’s smiling a little, despite the subject matter. It’s a little easier to talk about this now, now that Josh isn’t constantly on the brink of death part two, the reckoning, and the murky sludge of depression has mostly lifted from Neku’s head. It’s kinda cool to be able to joke about it without the twinge of guilt that used to follow it up, back when it was still seriously a problem.

 

He doesn’t notice he’s finished the cookie until Josh hands him another one, but he takes it. They are really good.

 

“Neku,” Josh says, in that soft voice that means he’s about to be genuine and has no idea what to do about it, “I just wanted to say--you know. Don’t flatter yourself.”

 

Neku raises his eyebrows. “Flatter myself?”

 

Josh smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I assure you that my, ah, my  _ controversial  _ decision to play the stakes on that game, that had nothing to do with you, or with anyone, but myself.”

 

“Oh, yeah? Nothing to do with your toxic support network, right?”

 

Joshua looks confused for a moment, and then realization hits. “Oh, well--hm. I’m not even sure I would call it a support network.”

 

“Yeah, not really. A twenty-four-seven service sub you didn’t ask for and fucking… fuckin’ Banksy. That’s a couple of sitcom characters, not a support network.” Neku finishes off his second cookie, and waves his hand, declining another, but he doesn’t seem to need to.

 

Joshua is staring at the table, silent, apparently deep in thought, and at last he says, “I never really thought about it that way.”

 

“What, that Hanekoma was literally just Banksy with a coffee fetish?”

 

“No, just…” Joshua waves his hand, not really describing anything in the process.

 

“Oh, right, yeah.” Neku’s being sarcastic, but it seems to satisfy Joshua anyway.

 

They sit there in silence for a moment. Apparently Josh is working through some things, and Neku doesn’t want to disturb him, and it’s not like spending a few minutes just looking at Joshua is any skin off  _ his _ nose, but something hits him and he has to say it so he does--

 

“So we’re both our own people, huh?”

 

Josh tilts his head, looks at him weird. “What are you talking about?”

 

“I mean…” Neku gestures. “No prior connection. I didn’t know you, you didn’t know me, you just thought I would be a good stand-in and then I wasn’t.”

 

“You were a very good stand-in,” Joshua starts to say, but Neku shakes his head.

 

“I didn’t do what you thought I would,” he says. “Because I’m my own person. I’m me. Not you. And you couldn’t make me into you if you tried.”

 

Josh has this look on his face that Neku can’t quite place. “And thank goodness.”

 

“Yeah, seriously, we don’t need another one of you.” Neku crosses his legs and thinks, looking up at the ceiling of the God Pad. “I dunno. I just think it’s interesting. Like, thematically resonant, or whatever, right. We’re both our own people and sometimes people who have nothing to do with each other end up changing each other’s whole world.” He’s getting kind of excited about this, on the verge of irritatingly maudlin, but he’s not quite there yet and Josh is still listening, he thinks, isn’t mocking him, so he’s still in the clear.

 

Josh seems to be about to say something, but he doesn’t, just staring forward, maybe not even quite looking at Neku.

 

“That’s cool,” Neku says, almost urgently, not sure  _ why _ , leaning forward across the table and tapping the space in front of Josh. “It’s cool. People are cool.”

 

Josh’s eyes refocus, and he looks at Neku, reaching out to him from all the way across the table, smiles, very small but as sincere as he might be capable of mustering.

 

“Josh,” Neku says, drumming his hand quick against the table, come on come on just  _ say _ something--

 

And he nods, slight but clear. “I hear you, Neku.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of a series because it's in the same universe as a longform fic i'm working on. there might be other shortform pieces, there might not, depends on what comes up. in the meantime, enjoy what's here and wait with bated breath


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